Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett has been under fire for a home insulation scheme gone wrong in which as many of 400,000 properties may have received below-grade insulation-and three installers have died of electrocution. And now, the safety of solar panel installations in the country has been called into question as well.

The insulation initiative was a result of economic stimulus monies for energy efficiency/insulation spurring a huge boom in the number not only of installations, but of installers; many of whom were poorly–if at all–qualified to do the work at hand. Plentiful government subsidies coupled with lack of oversight and training led to shoddy projects which now need to be reviewed en masse.

Home solar installations have also been funded by generous government subsidies in the past, and the fear now is that many of these–and more to come–will slip through similar cracks in regulatory oversight and safety standards. Garrett, backed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, is calling for a nationwide audit of solar panels to address these concerns. According to ABC, “The Clean Energy Council has raised fears that some of the panels – used to generate electricity – were wired with the wrong circuit breakers, which could overheat and cause a fire if the system was turned off for maintenance.” If this turns out to be true, it’s a serious and amateurish flaw–any experienced solar installer or electrician should be able to appropriately size a circuit breaker. This is the type of mistake most common to absolute beginners, and even then should be caught by a safety inspector before the system would be allowed to go live.

In addition, the United Firefighters Union of Australia ”argues that the electrical current in the panels can remain live after the power has been shut down and points overseas where a number of firefighters have been killed through electrocution”, according to The Australian. This may be more inflammatory than true: in a properly designed and installed solar installation using up-to-grade modules, electrical current remaining in the panels after power is shut off dissipates after just a few seconds.

When a solar PV system is shut down–by turning off all power to the house, using the disconnect box, or shutting down the inverter–the system stops producing electricity. Think about it: shutting off the system quite literally breaks the circuit of electrical production. In the United States, safety is of paramount importance in solar installations, which is why in order to qualify for most solar rebates or incentives you need at minimum a qualified electrician to sign off on your system, and in most cases, a certified solar installer.

But when a solar PV installation is designed and installed by someone who either doesn’t quite know what they’re doing, or is not paying enough attention to detail and safety, that’s when things can get dangerous. Ground faults can occur in an improperly installed PV system when the power is shut off, exposing workers to serious danger and potential death–but that’s what electrical codes and inspectors are there to prevent.

Australia’s concerns over the possible safety hazard of solar installations is valid inasmuch as it looks like the government pushed for too much, too fast: if inspectors can’t keep up with the demand for their services, and if experienced installers don’t have the bandwidth for more projects, cutting corners and inexperienced contractors are a likely (if not inevitable) result. But since Australians have been installing solar panels under the same regulations for years now, and no deaths or fires have been reported as a result of improperly installed systems, this furor may be purely political in nature and should die down quickly.